[python] Installing MySQL-python

I got the below failure while trying to get MySQL-python installed on my Ubuntu/Linux Box.From the below it seem like the issue is sh: mysql_config: not found Could someone advice me on what to do?

rmicro@ubuntu:~$ pip install MySQL-python
Downloading/unpacking MySQL-python
  Downloading MySQL-python-1.2.3.tar.gz (70Kb): 70Kb downloaded
  Running setup.py egg_info for package MySQL-python
    sh: mysql_config: not found
    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "<string>", line 14, in <module>
      File "/home/rmicro/build/MySQL-python/setup.py", line 15, in <module>
        metadata, options = get_config()
      File "setup_posix.py", line 43, in get_config
        libs = mysql_config("libs_r")
      File "setup_posix.py", line 24, in mysql_config
        raise EnvironmentError("%s not found" % (mysql_config.path,))
    EnvironmentError: mysql_config not found
    Complete output from command python setup.py egg_info:
    sh: mysql_config: not found

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 14, in <module>
  File "/home/rmicro/build/MySQL-python/setup.py", line 15, in <module>
    metadata, options = get_config()
  File "setup_posix.py", line 43, in get_config
    libs = mysql_config("libs_r")
  File "setup_posix.py", line 24, in mysql_config
    raise EnvironmentError("%s not found" % (mysql_config.path,))
EnvironmentError: mysql_config not found

----------------------------------------
Command python setup.py egg_info failed with error code 1

This question is related to python mysql

The answer is


yum install mysql-devel

It worked for me.


You have 2 options, as described bellow:


Distribution package like Glaslos suggested:

# sudo apt-get install python-mysqldb

In this case you can't use virtualenv no-site-packages (default option) but must use:

# virtualenv --system-site-packages myenv

Use clean virtualenv and build your own python-mysql package.

First create virtualenv:

# virtualenv myvirtualenv
# source myvirtualenv/bin/activate

Then install build dependencies:

# sudo apt-get build-dep python-mysqldb

Now you can install python-mysql

# pip install mysql-python

NOTE Ubuntu package is python-mysql*db* , python pypi package is python-mysql (without db)


Reread the error message. It says:

sh: mysql_config: not found

If you are on Ubuntu Natty, mysql_config belongs to package libmysqlclient-dev


In python3 with virtualenv on a Ubuntu Bionic machine the following commands worked for me:

sudo apt install build-essential python-dev libmysqlclient-dev
sudo apt-get install libssl-dev
pip install mysqlclient

this worked for me on python 3

pip install mysqlclient


  1. find the folder: sudo find / -name "mysql_config" (assume it's "/opt/local/lib/mysql5/bin")

  2. add it into PATH:export PATH:export PATH=/opt/local/lib/mysql5/bin:$PATH

  3. install it again


Python or Python3 with MySQL, you will need these. These libraries use MySQL's connector for C and Python (you need the C libraries installed as well), which overcome some of the limitations of the mysqldb libraries.

   sudo apt-get install libmysqlclient-dev
   sudo apt-get install python-mysql.connector
   sudo apt-get install python3-mysql.connector